EITA, Kiribati — We are following Rupee home when we suddenly find ourselves knee-deep in seawater.

An expert on the shallow route to her house, 15-year-old Rupee asks us to follow her closely through the water. As we emerge from the sea, a toilet seat drifts past our ankles. Her little brother splashes us, barely escaping Rupee’s swat.

“Cute... But annoying!” she says, rolling her eyes at his antics.

When it comes to global warming, Kiribati is known as a “frontline nation,” and if Kiribati is the front line, then Rupee’s neighborhood will be one of the first casualties.

Even at low-tide, Rupee’s family must cross a shallow stream of water to access their property. The rising seawater has contaminated the nearby groundwater, leaving only the dead trunks of coconut trees.

Gianluca Panella, Mashable

Rupee and her brother Tang are part of the “last generation” to live in the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati — one of the first countries that may vanish into the ocean under the rising seas, caused in large part by man-made climate change.

Located south of Hawaii, the island nation has a little more than 100,000 people living on less than 320 square miles of land — smaller than the city of Dallas.

World leaders are gathering this week for U.N. climate talks in Lima, Peru to lay the groundwork for a climate treaty to be implemented by 2020. But that may not be soon enough to reverse the tides.

At the talks, small island states, including Kiribati, are advocating that the world go completely fossil fuel free by 2050. This goal is viewed as unrealistic based on emission trends in countries such as the U.S., China, India and Brazil.

Though the process will be gradual, Kiribati can expect to become uninhabitable due to coastal erosion and fresh water contamination as early as 2050. More than 60% of Kiribati’s population is under the age of 30 and young people like Rupee, who make up the vast majority of Kiribati’s population, may be the last generation to live on these islands.

Rupee, 15, walks along her family’s fortress of a seawall.

Gianluca Panella, Mashable

“We are water people.”

Eita, her sunny, seaside village is located just a few miles from Kiribati’s national parliament. Her home sits atop a shrinking sandbar where her family lives with forty relatives and close friends.

“We are water people,” Rupee’s grandmother says, explaining that her family had lived near the coast for more than two generations. It gave her family privacy and allowed them to escape the crowds and problems associated with living further inland.

In recent years, however, King Tides – as islanders refer to periodic, extremely high tides – have become much more frequent, turning Eita’s low-lying residential areas into an ever-expanding swamp.

Several years ago, the seawater finally swelled above the coast’s shallow banks of Rupee’s home. The high tides swept through the grounds of their property, reducing it to a lagoon-side islet.

A few hours previously, we’d walked through these parts. At the time, it looked like a dry moonscape. Now it was filled with several feet of seawater.

A young woman relaxes in her seaside hammock. Internal displacement from the rising sea has resulted in overcrowding and pollution on Kiribati’s capitol island, South Tarawa. The high tides bring mountains of trash to the doorsteps of people like these.

Gianluca Panella, Mashable

“No community has escaped the impacts of climate change.”

At low tide, one can glimpse how the once-fertile soil has been transformed into a thick clay of mud, sewage and stagnant water. Stumps of dead coconut trees and car parts slowly rusting in the harsh Kiribati sun lend the seashore a post-apocalyptic feel.

During low tide, local kids play soccer on Rupee’s family lot. But when the tide is high, the ocean engulfs the family home along with entire other blocks.

Frontline communities like Eita exist across all of Kiribati’s 33 islands and atolls (coral islands). Most communities suffer from coastal erosion, but many also face the threat of saltwater contamination of their fresh water supply.

“No community has escaped the impacts of climate change,” says Andrew Teem, the Senior Advisor on Climate Change to the Kiribati national government. Teem has the challenging job of risk assessment in a nation surrounded by water and only a few meters above sea-level.

When the high tide arrives, Rupee’s property is submerged into the sea. At some points, the depth is more than a few meters.

Gianluca Panella, Mashable

“It’s no longer a question of whether we’ll remain in this country. It’s a matter of when we’ll have to leave.”

As recently as five years ago, King Tides came twice a year. This past year, however, King Tides occurred more than twenty times, Teem says.

“It’s no longer a question of whether we’ll remain in this country,” he said. “It’s a matter of when we’ll have to leave.”

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared Kiribati to be among the six Pacific Island nations most vulnerable to global warming. The study reported that these countries face “a serious threat of permanent inundation from rising sea-levels.”

Forty people live out of this sandbar with Rupee. Only two small hoses bring their electricity and water from the mainland.

Gianluca Panella, Mashable

“Where will we go? Will we be treated as refugees?”

The Kiribati government’s efforts include exploring the possibility of man-made floating islands and purchasing a piece of land in Fiji. However, the government is still working at the international level to curb carbon-emissions, to secure relocation destinations, and to lobby for climate change reparations — much needed funds if Kiribati’s people are forced to relocate.

If the current climatic predictions come to pass, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands will rapidly lose two-thirds of their land. The implications of climate change for the people of Kiribati are profound.

“Where will we go? Will we be treated as refugees?” says Teem. “We have these major considerations today, not in the future like other countries.”

In anticipation of sea-levels rising even further, Rupee’s parents are sending her to live with an aunt in New Zealand. Their hope is that her aunt will be able to adopt her since she’s still a minor.

“I’ll miss my parents, and my friends and my grandmother,” says Rupee, when contemplating what it means to leave Kiribati. “But it will be cool to meet other kinds of people,” she adds with a smile.

Children play in the waters of one of Kiribati’s outer islands known as Abaiang. Rising sea-levels have caused severe coastal erosion and fresh water contamination in Abaiang, and dead coconut trunks dot the terrain as a memory of time’s past.

Gianluca Panella, Mashable

“It’s really frightening. They say that we’re going to be swallowed by water."

So far, only Fiji has publicly stated that it would accept the Kiribati people. But the government of Kiribati has negotiated migration programs with Australia and New Zealand, though the limited slots make the selection process extremely competitive, and most families are forced to find other ways of securing their children’s futures.

“It’s really frightening. They say that we’re going to be swallowed by water, and you can see what the water is already doing to our home,” says Rupee’s grandmother.

“We will miss Rupee but we want her to have a good future. We know she is a good Kiribati girl; she will hold on to her culture and language; she will be polite and a good person, so we hope the people of New Zealand will welcome her.”

Rupee’s property under the moonlight. The tide is beginning to come in.

Gianluca Panella, Mashable

Dusk had fallen and creek snakes are known to enter the inlet after nightfall.

It’s time for Rupee to guide us back to the mainland. As she hugs us goodbye, we invite her the United States and suggest she move there.